Ramadhan fasting month is good training ground
Ramadhan fasting month is good training ground
By Santi W.E. Soekanto
The holy month of Ramadhan starts this week. Moslems will not eat or drink from dawn to dusk for the entire month. Non-Moslems often wonder how those observing the holy month stay healthy. The following article looks at how fasting trains Moslem and what spiritual benefit they get from it.
JAKARTA (JP): "Lebaran is coming, we're fasting in a happy spirit, a whole day for adults, a half day for children," goes the popular song by the Bimbo group. It will be heard almost everywhere when the fasting month of Ramadhan comes.
The song conveys more than just the happiness of the celebration at the end of the Ramadhan holiday, Lebaran or Idul Fitri. It tells how the fasting month is a training camp and that children should be gradually introduced to it.
This is exactly the sentiment felt by most Moslems as they prepare to greet the holy month.
The fasting month is a training ground which, when observed faithfully, makes us better persons, several Moslems told The Jakarta Post.
They also see the ritual daily abstention from food, drink and sex as a chance to advance spiritually.
In addition, they see the month as a period of "bonus giving", where even the smallest good deed is repaid by Allah many times over. They hope that fasting will purify them, provide them with the opportunity to pay penitence, and make them as pure as babies when the month is over.
According to prominent psychiatrist, Dr. Dadang Hawari, fasting has at least three benefits.
"Psychologically, fasting trains Moslems to be more resilient in handling stress and more patient in the face of aggravation," he said. "It is a time to exercise self-control... people who are mentally healthy are able to control themselves."
Socially, fasting sharpens Moslems' awareness of other people suffering.
"We are taught that nobody can be considered a man of faith if he can sleep while his neighbor is hungry. Fasting sensitizes us to other people's hunger," he said.
In addition, Islam teaches its believers to give more during the month. The alms and other forms of donations they give to the poor not only controls social jealousy, Dadang said, but also ensures that no Moslem will go hungry during Idul Fitri.
Finally, fasting helps Moslems advance spiritually.
"If you fast until the end of Ramadhan, you hope that Allah will reward you with forgiveness for your past and future sins. This give you a sense of relief," he said. "The feeling that Allah forgives us is an immense spiritual feeling."
Psychologist Ida Poernomo Sigit Sidi also saw Ramadhan as a chance to strive for "psychological liberation".
"The feeling of being forgiven our past sins motivates us to be even better in the future," she said.
She said the most important thing in observing Ramadhan, especially for the busy people in cities like Jakarta, is to gradually loosen the "busy trap" and enter the "calm sanctuary" offered by the act of fasting.
"There are people who just go through the motions," she said. "They fast, but their minds are not in it. They don't catch the essence of Ramadhan because they are trapped into daily routines."
She said the month is actually a good time to take a breather and consolidate oneself by paying more attention to other ibadah (worship), such as the evening tharawih prayers and reading the holy Koran.
"Which is why I hope that I won't get invited to too many fast breaking dinners. I hope more Moslems will devote more of their time this Ramadhan to their families," she pleaded.
Most of the people that the Post interviewed agreed that they saw no reason for their productivity to decline during the fast.
"If anything, fasting motivates me to work harder and be more productive," Wisnu Pramudya, a Moslem youth activist and reporter for Sahid Moslem magazine, said. "I learn from history, that it was during the holy month that Prophet Muhammad performed many of his great achievements."
Wisnu said that during the Badar and Khandaq wars in 630 AD, Prophet Muhammad led a small number of Moslem troops to defeat a larger number Quraish tribe soldiers.
It was also during Ramadhan that Prophet Muhammad returned victoriously, without even taking his sword out of its sheath, to the city of Mecca which once betrayed and chased him away, he said.
"Moslems must understand that Ramadhan is not an excuse to slacken our work habits," Wisnu said.